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Mangelsdorf Professional Services, LLC
Website Production,
Graphic Design and IT Services for Silicon Valley Businesses
http://mangelsdorf.net
johnp@mangelsdorf
.net
19371 Titus Court
Saratoga CA 95070
| office | 408/252–8664 |
| cell | 408/373–2894 |
| fax | 408/446–1785 |
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• Our Portfolio
• Client Testimonials
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SPECIAL OFFER
THROUGH TAX DAY
15% off on all new client projects. Ask for details.
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Recent MPS Web
Site Launches
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Celebrating their 10th Anniversary
in April with SPECIALS!
Buy a Breakfast
entree and receive
a free coffee
or
buy a Sandwich
receive a free anniversary cookie
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Welcome to the MPS Newsletter.
This is our first newsletter, sent to our friends and clients. If you do not wish to receive newsletters from us please use the "unsubscribe" link in the footer of this email. One click and you will be removed! If you do find this newsletter useful, please feel free to use the "forward to a friend" link to share it with your friends and colleagues.
Our intent in sending this newsletter is to stay in touch and hopefully provide you with some useful information on web site production, information technology and online marketing on a regular basis.
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Viruses, Spyware and Worms, Oh My!
(or how to protect your PC from malware)
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One would think by now Microsoft would have good built–in protection for all the threats that can wreak havoc on its operating systems. But no, I’m still removing "malware" from client workstations and laptops on a regular basis. (Malware is the blanket term used to describe any unwanted software that makes its way onto PCs.) So end–users still need to protect themselves from these menaces. For years I’ve recommended one of the first applications on the market, Norton Antivirus, which is now a Symantec product. Lately, though, Norton has been slipping in its ability to detect and eradicate today’s threats. I’ve read reports off the same regarding McAfee’s offerings.
Recently I’ve been testing a handful of contenders such as PC Tools Spyware Doctor + Antivirus, Grisoft AVG Anti–Virus & Anti–Spyware and Malwarebytes Anti–Malware 1.34. I like AVG the best because
- it is an all–in–one app for keeping the many threats off your computer, unlike the Malwarebytes’ offering, a version one app which doesn’t include virus protection
- it is available at Amazon for around $30 for a two–year license,
- the company doesn’t pull stunts like PC Tools and automatically bill your credit card after one year for renewal of the subscription and
- they have a free version for for private and non–commercial use: AVG Free Version.
We’d like to hear your opinions and experiences with malware and anti–malware apps; please feel free to use the suggestion form.
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Cut the Spam! Mailto Links VS Contact Forms |
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If you like spam, use "mailto:" links on your web site. Spammers love to "scrape" email addresses from web sites using automated web crawlers and sell them right and left.
If you are not so keen on more spam, a recommended solution is a contact form which allows your email address to remain inaccessible to crawlers. A form also gives you the opportunity to ask if the user would like to be added to your mailing list, or any specific question, using checkboxes and text fields, which might help you better respond to the contact. A form can be submitted to several email addresses and the responses can also be stored in a database. And finally, if your site’s visitor does not have an email client on the computer they are using, he or she will still be able to contact you.
Adding a Javascript contact form to your website, designed to match your site’s style, and either integrated into your contact page, or as a separate popup page, is an easy way to avoid exposing your email addresses to spammers while making it convenient for your users to contact you.
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Search Engine Optimization Take–aways |
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Some of the SEO improvements you can do for your site do not require server access or knowledge of HTML. Here are a few take–aways:
- Incoming Links. Spend a few minutes each week signing up for on–line directories or adding a profile on a social network. Each new incoming (and relevant) link from these sites helps your SEO.
- Search engines want to give their users good information from relevant web sites. To show your domain name is associated with a legitimate business, purchase your domain for several years, rather than just renewing ownership once a year. This tells the search engines yours is not a site just created for a quick buck.
- Start building a profile on yelp.com. One of our customers gets around 100 links to her site from her yelp profile each month. Set up the profile and ask customers to review your business. This is good for SEO because you get an incoming link to your site, but also because yelp has become a very well positioned directory, so keywords which might not be working for your site, may well be working in combination with the yelp database.
- If you are considering a new web site, and SEO is a priority, have your designer/coder build you a site written in HTML with limited navigation graphics and/or Flash. Search engine indexers cannot "see" graphics or Flash*, so while this may make your site pretty, it limits your chances of good search engine organic (un–paid–for) results.
* There has been news from Google that they are now indexing Flash sites to some extent, but for maximum SEO results, HTML is still the way to go.
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